


Nothing and Nowhere Is Golden

by treefrogie84



Series: Spooktober 2019 [6]
Category: Supernatural, Wayward Sisters - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Greek gods, Hunter Claire Novak, can angel blades kill gods?, they can now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 21:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21215186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treefrogie84/pseuds/treefrogie84
Summary: The sun beats down on her shoulders, turning her jacket into an oven. She might be cooler carrying it, but Claire wants to have at least one hand free and she’s already got a duffle in her left hand, stuffed full of clothes and weapons, too full to toss a leather jacket in.Heaving a sigh, she glances down the road, peering through the heat haze in hopes that car will show up on the horizon.She’s alone, of course, on dusty two-lane blacktop snaking south and leaving her with nothing but her thoughts, a dead cell phone, and a burning desire to be anywhere else.





	Nothing and Nowhere Is Golden

**Author's Note:**

> Spooktober Prompt: Familiar

The sun beats down on her shoulders, turning her jacket into an oven. She might be cooler carrying it, but Claire wants to have at least one hand free and she’s already got a duffle in her left hand, stuffed full of clothes and weapons, too full to toss a leather jacket in.

Heaving a sigh, she glances down the road, peering through the heat haze in hopes that car will show up on the horizon.

She’s alone, of course, on dusty two-lane blacktop snaking south and leaving her with nothing but her thoughts, a dead cell phone, and a burning desire to be anywhere else. 

A quarter mile later, Claire drags herself to the small copse of trees just off the road before dropping to the ground, sprawling in the shade and ditching her jacket for a few minutes while she cools off.

She doesn’t dare rest for too long, not when she doesn’t know what’s following her, but a few minutes should be ok. 

A tiny stream flows through the trees, into a culvert under the road. Frowning, Claire watches it for a few minutes, unsure if she wants to risk it. A hot breeze picks up, blowing all the heat from the road over her. Shuddering, she splashes her face with the water and tries to trickle a bit down the back of her shirt.

The mental countdown-- five minutes, more or less-- reaches zero and she shrugs her jacket back on, taking a moment to make sure it falls right before swinging her bag up onto her shoulder and heading back to the road.

It’s _hot_, the sun beating down on her shoulders, turning her jacket into an oven. Shifting her bag into her hand, she thinks about ditching it, ditching the jacket too. She’d be cooler without the jacket at least, even if she’d rather keep a hand free, even if she can’t remember why.

Turning, she looks back along the road, squinting through the heat haze, trying to see if a car was coming, before sighing and continuing to trudge along the road. 

A faint thought crosses her mind that something is (? Was?) following her and she… needed to keep walking, because the only thing that’s followed her in her whole life is her juvie record. Nothing behind her, nothing hunting her besides heat stroke. 

Sighing, she keeps walking, hoping that she can find a place to stop soon.

A shot rings out behind her, something heavy hitting the road. Frantically, she drops the bag and spins around, trying to spot the thing that’s hunting her.

There’s nothing there, again, but she knows she heard… 

Ripping open the bag, she grabs the… gun… that’s on top. Except that’s not right-- she doesn’t like guns, too great of a chance of a bystander getting hurt, why would she have packed that on top…

Another shot, invisible pellets hitting the leather of her jacket. Most of them bounce off, a few don’t, and a more brush through her ponytail, uncomfortably close to her head. Dropping to the ground, she rolls over, aiming the gun at the…

Waiting emptiness behind her, the hazy blue of a late summer sky. 

Closing her eyes, she listens, trying to hear whatever has been stalking her, even if she can’t remember _why_. There’s a scuff on the asphalt a few feet away. Breathing out, she fires twice, aiming for what should be center-mass on anything vaguely human sized.

Faintly over the ringing in her ears, she hears something like ‘booyah!’ before the empty space she shot… stumbles. 

That’s the only word she can think of. It was empty, and it’s still empty, but it kinda jostled and was suddenly… empty in a different spot? It tripped, or got shot, and _something is different_.

Scrambling for her bag, she drags out the fucking Gregorian sword, pushing herself to her feet and lunging forward.

The tip of the sword impacts something, sliding forward like a hot knife through butter, and sticking out the other side. It shudders in her hand, jerking around, whatever she’s stuck trying to break it out of her grip, before it stops.

Chest heaving, Claire looks around for help-- someone else is here, she knows, even if she can’t see them, but--

The wind whispers that whatever her sword is stuck in is dead and she can let go. Frowning, Claire hesitantly starts to let go, stepping away and watching her sword-- piercing a giant chunk of nothing-- sag and fall forward, landing on the ground and further embedding the sword.

Ok, so… that’s a thing… now she just needs to--

A hand touches her cheek, gently turning her face away from… whatever that thing is. A thumb (?) swipes something greasy over her eyelids-- not thick enough to glue her eyes shut, but enough she can feel it. Somehow she knows these hands mean her no harm, can be trusted at her back and other vulnerable areas.

The hands drop away, reaching for her hand. 

Blinking her eyes open, Claire tightens her grip on Alex’s hand. “Did it work?”

“Congrats, Kiddo, you just snagged your first god,” Dean rumbles a few feet away, crouching next to the body. 

“Really?” Eyes lighting up, she spins towards the body, slumping over in the middle of the road. Her aim hadn’t been a true as she thought-- the sword at an awkward angle, hitting lungs and the heart only as an afterthought, but it worked! 

Dropping Alex’s hand, she pushes over the god’s corpse and pulls out her sword, setting it aside for the moment. “Burn the body, hope no one believes in him enough to bring him back anytime soon?”

“Bingo.”

“There’s wood in the truck,” Alex says, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll grab it while you two… do whatever.”

Claire snorts, waving her off before pushing herself back to her feet. “What about the river, back there? Pretty sure it’d turned into an off-shoot of the Lethe.”

Dean shrugs. “The eggheads all agree that without Hypnos here to keep feeding it, it’ll return to normal water soon enough. At most, there’ll be a few more days of fucked up dreams, possibly some cows forgetting how to cow.” Abruptly, he pulls Claire into a hug. “Proud of you, but never do this shit again.”

They stand around in awkward silence for a while longer, until Alex gets back with the truck, before hurriedly building a pyre in the fallow field next to them.

It’s dark by the time the fire has burnt itself out. Alex drives them back to town, dropping Dean at the motel at the edge of town-- Cas waves at them from the doorway-- and then stopping for gyros before going back home.


End file.
